May 16 - June 9, 2013 Start the Festival in style with the SIFF 2013 Opening Night Gala! The evening features the Seattle premiere of Much Ado About Nothing, with director Joss Whedon and cast members Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, and Clark Gregg scheduled to attend.

Set in the 2012 campaign season, this film follows ACLU activist Alison Holcomb, travel writer Rick Steves, politicians such as Pete Holmes, and law enforcement officials as they crusade for Initiative 502, a hardnosed plan to legalize marijuana in Washington State at the ballot box. Seattle-based director Riley Morton, whose mountaineering documentary, Found on Everest (2001), is the apex of many adventure films he shot abroad, stays close to home to document this fierce, local mêlée. Medical marijuana activists and criminal defense lawyers oppose the initiative, with its bitter pills designed to appease the mainstream swing voters. Morton and producer Nils Cowan are joined by Jason Reid, Darren Lund, and Adam Brown, the team behind Webby Award-winning Sonicsgate that chronicled the Sonics basketball team’s departure from Seattle in 2008. With intimate access to players on all sides, Evergreen delivers intimate portraits of Washingtonians as they, and thus the audience, experience the optimism, confrontation, and gaps between ideals and reality that emerge as voting day draws closer. These emotional contours heighten the story’s resonance with drug reform efforts in America and across the world; engaging its audience as witnesses to a truly historical moment.

Director BiographyRiley Morton directed Found on Everest (2001), which documents the highest rescue in history, and The Wonderland Project (2004), about an attempt to run a trail that circumnavigates Mt. Rainier in only 24 hours. Evergreen is his first major foray into the world of political documentary.

Sponsored in part by Underworld Tour, 4Culture, National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, KCTS 9 Reel NW, ACLU of Washington

SIFF's mission is to create experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world. It is through the art of cinema that we foster a community that is more informed, aware, and alive!